The façade of the My Father Cigars factory in Estelí, which is owned and operated by the Garcia family.
Once a small, unassuming chinchalle in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, My Father Cigars has grown to a large-scale operation in Nicaragua thanks to the passion and dedication of the Garcia family. In 2022, My Father Cigars produced some 20 million cigars, among them brands such as My Father Le Bijou 1922 and Flor de Las Antillas—both of which have won our Cigar of the Year award. It’s also responsible for third-party brands like Tatuaje.
The surge in demand for premium cigars caused by the pandemic meant significant growth for the company. From 2020 to 2021, My Father doubled the size of its rolling room, doubled its packaging area and doubled the square footage of its box factory.
We walk you through My Father’s vertically-integrated cigar operation, highlighting some of its day-to-day activities at the factory in Estelí as well as a few of its tobacco fields in the high altitudes of Namanji, a region of Nicaragua that brings another unique flavor profile to this rich land of tobacco.
The air is damp and misty in the destemming room, where workers remove the central vein of each leaf of tobacco.
Tobacco is sorted by size and color, one of the many steps in the cigarmaking process. This tobacco has already undergone fermentation.
The rolling room used to be half the size, but now houses 350 pairs of rollers, all working full time to keep up with demand.
A buncher assembles tobacco leaves before placing them in a mold, which sits half full on the ledge of the rolling table. Once these bunches have spent time in the mold, they’ll be ready to be covered in wrapper.
Cigarmaker and Cigar Aficionado Hall-of-Famer José “Pepín” Garcia runs My Father Cigars with his family. He inspects the work of a roller with a critical eye.
Jaime Garcia shows off a manojo, which is four gavillas, or hands, of tobacco grouped together and bound. Bundling tobacco like this is an old method that the Garcias believe maintains the wrapper at the right humidity level while it ages in a cold room for four years.
The box factory on premises produces 5,000 boxes per day. Here, a worker affixes brooch-style latches to each box with speed and efficiency.
These boxes of Flor de Las Antillas cigars have been filled and fully labeled. Next, they’ll be shrink-wrapped in plastic and sent to the headquarters in Miami.
Up in the mountains of Namanji, this field of Corojo ’99 still has some time before it reaches maturity.
Field workers emerge from the rows of tobacco with armfuls of leaves. Notice how most of the plant has been harvested, as the stalks are bare, save for the uppermost priming.
A stone retaining wall marks a clear edge for Las Lometas, one of many farms owned by the Garcia family throughout Nicaragua.
